All the problems with this could be trivially avoided if it was a separate lens, rather than showing up in the home lens, which we expect to be searching our own computer.
You're making a big assumption about the "problems". Ubuntu's problem is to make revenue, making it a separate lens will cut down the the searches to Amazon by a huge amount, almost no one will use the new lens, whereas now everyone is forced to look at Amazon results.
Making it search Amazon by default will raise much much more revenue.
But if users go elsewhere because of this sort of thing, Ubuntu doesn't make money either.
To be fair, I'm sure many end users won't care. But I think they have a serious problem with advocates - people like me who would recommend Ubuntu to others. I already feel less comfortable recommending it if it's going to do things like this.
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All the problems with this could be trivially avoided if it was a separate lens, rather than showing up in the home lens, which we expect to be searching our own computer.
I have opened a bug report for this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-lens-shoppin...
You're making a big assumption about the "problems". Ubuntu's problem is to make revenue, making it a separate lens will cut down the the searches to Amazon by a huge amount, almost no one will use the new lens, whereas now everyone is forced to look at Amazon results.
Making it search Amazon by default will raise much much more revenue.
But if users go elsewhere because of this sort of thing, Ubuntu doesn't make money either.
To be fair, I'm sure many end users won't care. But I think they have a serious problem with advocates - people like me who would recommend Ubuntu to others. I already feel less comfortable recommending it if it's going to do things like this.
It also doesn't make it acceptable to me. For it to be acceptable to me there needs to be no integration with Amazon at all.